London, 18 September 1944
Secret
To the President from Winant.
Immediately following your directive that a mission to drop supplies on Warsaw was authorized clearance was obtained from Moscow and the project organized. Bad weather has delayed the mission. I thought you would like to know that I just received a message which was flashed back stating that one hundred and seven ships today in clear weather had dropped supplies over Warsaw.
The Pittsburgh Press (September 18, 1944)
Germans hurl troops against Yank wedge beyond Siegfried Line
By Virgil Pinkley, United Press staff writer
Airborne invasion of the Netherlands by U.S. and British troops reached the rear of German forces defending the northern route into the Reich. The British 2nd and the 1st Canadian Armies drove north from Belgium. On the U.S. 1st Army front, troops absorbed several German counterattacks east of Aachen and drove toward Cologne. The U.S. 3rd Army neared the German border in Luxembourg and joined the 7th Army in an assault on the Belfort Gap.
Bulletin
London, England –
A dispatch from U.S. 1st Army headquarters said that counterattacks along the entire front inside Germany had virtually halted the American advance today, but said that all German attempts to push back the Yanks were repulsed.
SHAEF, London, England –
Allied sky trains totaling 285 miles in length today poured reinforcements and supplies down to Lt. Gen. Lewis H. Brereton’s airborne army, which achieved, in heavy fighting, its initial objectives in a bold attempt to turn the Siegfried Line and open the way to Berlin.
A front dispatch apparently written last night said the Germans were fleeing from the Allied invasion by air, and had evacuated at least 13 Dutch towns and villages.
The security blackout still concealed from the German High Command and the world the details of the descent on Holland – details of which the Nazis obviously had not been able to patch into a pattern for use in the defense of northwestern Germany.
Crack German troops shifted westward from the Russian front counterattacked the tip of the U.S. 1st Army wedge which Lt. Gen. Courtney H. Hodges had driven through the Siegfried Line east of Aachen, but the Yanks absorbed the impact handily without the loss of a single pillbox.
United Press writer Jack Frankish, in a 1st Army front dispatch reporting the German counterattack, said it was launched on a small scale than one yesterday.
Counterattacks pushed the Americans back two miles yesterday in the Luxembourg frontier area, but the ground was retaken during the night.
Resistance was stiffening along the entire front within Germany. Artillery and air activity had increased greatly.
U.S. patrols penetrated Germany as far as two miles east of Stolberg, which is five miles east of Aachen, but it was not clear at headquarters exactly how far east of Stolberg the main forces were operating.
Lt. Gen. Sir Miles C. Dempsey’s British 2nd Army smashed forward across the Dutch frontier in a full-scale advance after nearly two weeks of comparative lull. Armor moved from the De Groote bridgehead across the Escaut Canal in the direction of Eindhoven.
Radio Berlin said the 2nd Army and the airborne troops were within five miles of a juncture in the Eindhoven area of southern Holland.
While the geography of the airborne onslaught remained obscure, it was evident that the British were pressing northward for a junction with Gen. Brereton’s forces. A dispatch from the airborne front said the thunder of battle was audible to the south, obviously heralding the approach of the British.
Again at 1:00 p.m. CET today, the hour of action yesterday, the mighty array of planes rained men and material down to the forces in Holland which by Nazi account were in position to push past the north end of the Siegfried Line above the Rhine and into Germany.
All of central England was covered by the sky trains carrying out the reinforcement mission today, while bombers of the U.S. 8th Air Force dropped food, ammunition and fuel in small parachutes called “canopies.”
The airmen expected less danger from anti-aircraft fire today because of the Airborne Army’s gains against enemy positions.
More than 3,000 planes of all types were revealed to have taken part in the airborne attack yesterday. Their losses were described officially as “slight.”
That all was going well was indicated by revelation that one divisional commander radioed from the field today that the parachute missions were “absolutely superb.”
Canadian forces cleaning up the Channel coast were reported in a front dispatch to have fought their way into the main part of Boulogne and the port area. Both infantry and armor were in the southwestern part of the town and were also established on Mont Lambert, the key to the defenses of Boulogne.
Near neck of Channel
Other Canadian forces advanced closer to Cap Gris Nez, at the narrowest neck of the Channel, and only two German defense points, including the Lighthouse, still held out in that area.
Senior officers of the 1st Allied Airborne Army said the D-Day landings in Normandy were small in comparison with the attack on Holland. Originally scheduled for yesterday morning, the air attack was delayed a few hours.
The first reports were so encouraging that senior officers said the Allies can drop behind the Siegfried Line, across the Rhine, or anywhere else they like.
The U.S. 1st Army cut into the German border city of Aachen and drove beyond the breached Siegfried Line to within 20 miles of Cologne, while U.S. 3rd Army troops swung up north of Metz in a sudden strike across Luxembourg that carried up to the Nazi frontier.
Join 7th Army
Other 3rd Army forces thrust down to join with the 7th Army in a frontal assault on the Belfort Gap leading into southwestern Germany, and unconfirmed reports said the Americans reached Belfort itself.
Field Marshal Sir Bernard L. Montgomery, in a message to the British, Canadian and Allied troops under his command, said almost 400,000 Germans have been captured in Western Europe.
“It is becoming problematical how much longer the enemy can continue the struggle,” he said.
In a single giant stride, the airborne army had crossed the flood barrier the Nazis relied upon to protect Germany from invasion through the Netherlands.
Seek knockout
Allied spokesmen, jubilant at the initial success of the hazardous aerial invasion, made it clear that they were playing for the highest stakes – a quick knockout of the German Army.
Gen. Brereton declared flatly that upon the success of the airborne landing “rests the difference between a quick decision in the west and a long, drawn-out battle.”
Berlin admitted the gravity of the Allied threat and warned the people of Holland that the German Army intended to turn their homeland into a battleground and hold it at all costs.
The Nazis said the main Allied concentrations had landed around Eindhoven, Tilburg and Nijmegen, the latter north of the Rhine and only five miles from the German frontier.
At the same time, they hinted that further paratroop and glider landings are expected, as well as a possible seaborne attack on the Dutch coast.
Coast landing reported
One unconfirmed report broadcast by the Vichy radio said Allied sky troops made a new landing today on the seacoast nine miles north of The Hague.
United Press correspondents who flew over Holland with the invading Army reported that Gen. Brereton’s men, mostly American veterans of the Normandy landing but including strong British, Dutch and Polish contingents, were meeting relatively weak opposition from the disorganized Nazis.
Aided by a massive aerial bombardment that temporarily swept the Nazi Air Force from the skies and knocked out virtually every German battery in the landing areas, the sky attack yesterday liberated a number of Dutch villages within an hour and seized scores of vital bridges, canal crossings and rail and highway junctions.
Units of the 1st Canadian Army also moving in on the Netherlands from their positions on the Leopold Canal, on the British left flank.
4000 planes attack
The sudden air strike behind the Nazi lines came on the heels of a 15-hour aerial bombardment during which more than 4,000 U.S. and British warplanes ripped almost continuously at the invasion-marked sector with bombs and gunfire.
The RAF’s heavyweights set the attack In motion before midnight Saturday, and at daybreak Sunday the U.S. 8th Air Force sent its Flying Fortresses and fighter-bombers into action, Even as the first paratroops were tumbling down, U.S. fighter-bombers were swooping in beneath them, uncovering the Nazi gun positions and splattering them with fragmentation bombs.
In all, more than 7,500 tons of bombs were dropped across the Netherlands and nearby enemy airfields in Germany where the Nazi Air Force was known to have concentrated planes to meet Gen. Brereton’s 1,000-plane glider and transport fleet.
Nazis counterattack
The attack promised immediate and serious repercussions on the fighting front south of the Netherlands, where Gen. Hodges’ 1st Army troops were across the German frontier in force along an almost continuous line from Aachen to the Trier sector.
Gen. Hodges’ men were through the Siegfried Line beyond Aachen and striking across open country toward Cologne where the Nazis were reported digging anti-tank trenches and burying tanks in preparation for a full-scale stand on the Rhine. Headquarters had no comment on German reports of fighting at Duran, 20 miles west of Cologne.
Capture 1,000 a day
The Americans met strong opposition farther south in the Monschau area, and around Bollendorf and Echternach, where the Germans counterattacked savagely after falling back from their main Siegfried fortifications.
Despite the sudden stiffening of enemy opposition, German prisoners were still being taken by the 1st Army at the rate of 1,000 a day, including many who discarded their uniforms in a vain attempt to ship through the American lines.
Lt. Gen. George S. Patton’s U.S. 3rd Army forces south of the 1st Army pushed up across Luxembourg at an undisclosed point, north of Metz and United Press writer Robert Richards said they were approaching the German frontier.
Drives on Metz
Gen. Patton’s troops also cut slowly through the ring of forts protecting Metz, where the Germans were reported digging in for last-ditch fight, and cleared both banks of the Moselle River virtually all the way south from Pont-a-Mousson to Charmes.
On Gen. Patton’s right flank, the U.S. 7th Army wheeled an against the Belfort Gap, capturing Montbéliard (10 miles southwest of Belfort), Lure (18 miles west of Belfort) and four other towns on the approaches to the gap.
Other 7th Army troops along the Italo-French border farther south fought their way 11 miles northwest of Modane through the Maurienne Valley to Lanslebourg, where they ran into stiff opposition from German mountain troops.
Radio France in Algiers said the German garrison at Brest had surrendered, but there was no confirmation of the report at headquarters.
Germans ask for ‘token battle’ first
By Collie Small, United Press staff writer
Beaugency, France – (Sept. 16, delayed)
Twenty thousand Germans who surrendered to 24 brash Americans arrived at the Loire River and turned in their arms to the U.S. 83rd Infantry Division.
Though technically prisoners, they had been permitted to march in a group, fully armed, for 200 miles. Twenty-four Americans had been insufficient to protect them from the vengeance of the French Maquis. Only at the Loire River were there enough Americans to protect them.
It was one of the strangest military capitulations on record. The French didn’t like it. They thought the Americans were a little crazy to let 20,000 armed men march 200 miles without guard or direction. But it turned out as it had been planned. The Germans were more afraid of the French than the French distrusted the Germans. They wanted to keep their arms only for their own protection.
Led by general
They were led by Maj. Gen. Botho Elster, their commander. He and his staff formally handed their swords to Maj. Gen. Robert C. Mason, commander of the 83rd Infantry Division. Two and a half miles behind them were their men, three columns of weary and disheartened Germans who stacked arms on the river bank and marched across pontoon bridges to prison camps.
For weeks there have been reports of large numbers of Germans in southern France wanting to surrender if only they could find some Americans to accept their surrender – Germans who didn’t want to surrender to the French Forces of the Interior. Now, for the first time, is told the authentic story of a remarkable footnote to the history of the war.
Elster, formerly commander at Biarritz, was ordered on Aug. 26 to regroup all German troops along the Spanish border and the Bay of Biscay and taken them 600 miles back to the Reich. They included 6,000 regular soldiers, 6,000 Luftwaffe personnel and 7,000 marines. They had 400 stolen civilian autos, 500 trucks and 1,000 horse-drawn vehicles.
Never fought real battle
This force never fought a real battle but for weeks it was harassed by the Maquis and the planes of the U.S. 9th Air Force. It met a patrol of 24 Americans led by Lt. Samuel W. Magill, 24, of Ashtabula, Ohio, and promptly surrendered.
The platoon had been sent out on an intelligence and reconnaissance mission into enemy territory. On Sept. 8, two Maquis told Lt. Magill there was a German general farther south who wanted to talk terms.
Asks token fight
Lt. Magill told me:
The Maquis said the German escape route almost was closed and that instead of going back to defend the French ports, the Germans might be willing to surrender.
I sent word to the Germans, hinting I might be agreeable. The commander answered that he was willing if we would send two battalions to the village of Decize for a token battle to make it look good.
Hell, I didn’t know of two battalions within a million miles, so I used another angle. I arranged a meeting and asked our air force for planes. I told the air force I would have a smoke signal at a certain crossroads and if I laid a red panel on the ground they should bomb and strafe the German troops as a convincer but if I put down a white panel just to fly around looking menacing.
Before the planes arrived, I felt pretty optimistic so I placed the white panel and sent two French officers to talk to the Germans. The Germans got a look at all those planes and agreed right away to an armistice. Gen. Elster agreed to come to the village of Issoudun with one of his staff officers for a conference with Gen. Mason.
After that I didn’t do much but the Germans agreed to surrender at the Loire if they could march there with their arms for protection against the Maquis who had been scaring them.
Slain Yanks dot road in South France; civilians inter them as their own sons
By Robert Vermillion, United Press staff writer
…
Advance on Morotai, in Halmaheras
By Frank Tremaine, United Press staff writer
Pearl Harbor, Hawaii –
U.S. invasion forces extended their foothold in the Southern Palau Islands today, capturing one-third of tiny Angaur and the southern end of Peleliu, together with its airfield, 560 miles east of the Philippines.
Army troops of the 81st Infantry Division, which landed on Angaur Saturday, rolled through the three-square-mile island against little opposition and penetrated as much as 1,500 yards at one point.
Marines on Peleliu, six miles north of Angaur, met stiff resistance but with the support of a steady naval and air bombardment, fanned out for one-third of a mile on the southwest coast and were driving northward.
Tighten grip on Morotai
At the same time, Gen. Douglas MacArthur’s veteran Army forces tightened their grip on Morotai, in the Halmaheras. at the southern end of the American line extending around the southeastern corner of Mindanao from the Palaus.
Southwest Pacific Headquarters said the troops reached all the perimeter objectives against negligible opposition and continued to consolidate their beachhead.
While construction battalions rushed completion of the Pitu Airfield, 250 miles south of the Philippines, Allied bombers dropped more than 210 tons of explosives in neutralization raids on other Halmahera airdromes.
Drive 1,000 yards inland
On Angaur, Army troops under Maj. Gen. Paul J. Mueller pushed more than 1000 yards inland within a day after they landed, joined their beachheads on the north and northeast end of the island, captured a radio station and started a drive southward.
The American line extended from the phosphate diggings on the west coast to a point 200 yards south of Rocky Point on the east coast.
“The northeast third of Angaur now is in our hands,” Adm. Chester W. Nimitz said, and observers believed the Jap garrison of less than 2,000 men may be overwhelmed by the end of the week.
Seize high ground
The invasion of Angaur eliminated the threat of Jap artillery from the rear of the 1st Division Marines hacking their way northward through Peleliu.
Despite the heavy opposition in which the Japs were using artillery and mortars, the Marines drove one-third of a mile from their beachhead on the southwest corner, seized a large part of the town of Asias-Omaok and occupied high ground in the Ngarekeukl area.
William Ewing, in a pooled broadcast from a U.S. flagship off Palau, said the Marines captured the highest point on Peleliu – a 200-foot hill overlooking the entire island – and reported that the battle was progressing favorably “beyond our greatest expectations.”
Losses heavy
The hill, Mr. Ewing said, was an important objective. From it the Japs had hurled mortar and artillery shells on U.S. forces.
Losses were heavy in taking the hill by frontal attack, he said. He added that total U.S. casualties have been relatively light.
The Marines and fire of warships and planes were taking a heavy toll of the Jap force, numbering 10,000 men at the start. In four days of fighting, the Americans have counted 1,400 Jap dead.
The Marines captured the second radio station on the island, a power plant and the Peleliu Airfield, which has two strips, each 4,200 feet long, and is large enough to accommodate medium bombers and fighters.
Headquarters disclosed that the Marines on Peleliu consisted of elements of the 1st Regiment under Col. Lewis B. “Chesty” Puller of Saluda, Virginia, the 7th Regiment under Col. Herman H. Hannekan of Kingston, North Carolina, and the 50th Regiment under Col. Harold D. Harris of Alexandria, Georgia.
A Tokyo broadcast gave an indication of the nature of the American assault on Peleliu. It said U.S. battleships “are cruising back and forth, raining salvo after salvo into the Japanese positions” and by Sunday had fired over 10,000 shells. At the same time, Tokyo added, formations of Allied planes “which darkened the skies continuously rained bombs on our positions.”
Allied bombers from Adm. Nimitz and Gen. MacArthur’s commands, meanwhile, continued widespread attacks on bases through the Central and Southwest Pacific.
Seventh Army Air Force Liberators hit Iwo Jima, in the Volcanos; Marcus Island; Pagan and Rota, in the Marianas: Ponape in the Carolines, and Nauru, west of the Gilberts.
Allied pilots of the Far Eastern Air Force swept through the Dutch East Indies, mostly concentrating on shipping lanes where they sank or damaged 13 merchant vessels, barges and small craft. The largest was a 3,000-ton freighter-transport which was sunk off Celebes Island.
Man mob sought escapes, but witness is beaten, held in Tiber and body hung from window
…
By Florence Fisher Parry
I went to see the Pittsburgh premiere of Wilson. I had seen it in New York. It had impressed me very deeply – one of the few motion pictures I had ever really felt the need of seeing again.
I sat among “young people;” the First World War had not happened to them; the era of Wilson was but a history lesson to them. They were interested, they were greatly impressed, but they were not reliving any portion of their lives. I felt immensely superior to them, somehow; glad I was old enough to have lived these two wars and see them in relation to each other.
I had time, this seeing of the picture, to notice its embroidery, its consummate setting, its wealth of historical detail. There is not an anachronism; there are few departures from the strict chronicle of fact, and these serve but to illumine, never distort, history. The action moves with a kind of even and ordained majesty… like the course of the constellations wheeling across the sky…
THUS WAS IT TO BE, we sense. This is history. This is the grist that is ground in the mills of the gods…
There was a man with a dream. It enlarged him, inspired him, consumed him, killed him.
But dreams, unlike mortals, do not die. Conceived of man, they yet take on a separate immortality.
The dream did not die. But to survive, it had to undergo great travail.
Blood-soaked, it is rising now to its full stature. The ghosts of 20 million new dead who would not have needed to die, will not let it languish again.
‘Republic’
Never was a motion picture so fortuitously timed. A way must be made for all who live in this Republic to see it. It is a propaganda picture, yes; but it is not a political propaganda picture. At least to the informed it is not; to the intelligent and mature it is not.
It can be used, I dare say, by the base machinery of politics to point the way to the November polls; and frankly I fear that this may happen. That would be a pity; but we must take that chance. The important thing is for all to see it.
It does, however, point one fault which is, I think, deplorable. I wonder that the Republican Party has not been more successful in handling this American tendency; and that is, the assumption that the democratic form of government is espoused by the Democratic Party as opposed to the Republican Party.
I think that the picture Wilson could easily have avoided the accusation that it “plays” party politics, by introducing, in its text, the word REPUBLIC occasionally as a synonym for the word democracy.
To me the most brilliant passages in the picture were those devoted to our national presidential conventions! Never has the public been afforded such a magnificent, colorful, LIVING duplication of this strange American institution IN ACTION. We are shown the American system of free government in full play. All its weaknesses, all its dangers, all its terrifying risks, are conspicuously acknowledged in a series of stunning convention sequences which, for sheer abundant circus impact, have never been equaled on the screen!
Yet through it all THE DEMOCRATIC SYSTEM of FREE GOVERNMENT manages to survive, thrive, and turn the august tide of history! It DOES work.
Once to every man
If only for this, the picture Wilson must be seen; for never have we had greater need of this assurance.
There are other, many other, distinguishing features which left the picture up and out of all molds that have gone before. Perhaps the manner in which it avoids making Wilson a great man, but is content to present him as he was – an honest, fearless, impractical and stubborn human being whom crisis reared to prominence and who rose to the circumstance and did it honor – perhaps this is the picture’s greatest achievement.
Perhaps Wilson will make motion picture history, establish some new record – I do not know, perhaps it will be found to be another magnificent box-office failure. I hope not this; for that would frighten me.
If Wilson’s dream, neglected in his day, does not interest us now, God pity us, and those who will pay later for our folly.
She beams tunes at retreating Germans telling them she’ll get by Siegfried Line
…
Death of British nobleman follows that of bride’s brother by month
…
England wants defeated nation to remain weak and subservient to her
…
Success in both fields would cut levies and boost income, Beardsley Ruml says
By Beardsley Ruml
…
Massachusetts tie-up threatens to spread
…
Ex-hubby objects to Turk as squire
…
Aboard Dewey campaign train (UP) –
Governor Thomas E. Dewey headed for Seattle today to make his bid for labor support in the November election with a program designed to “restore free collective bargaining and to correct the existing situation in which labor’s rights are made subject to political favoritism.”
The Republican presidential nominee is to address the nation tonight from Seattle’s Civic Auditorium.
Mr. Dewey’s speech will be broadcast by WJAS at 10:30 p.m. ET.
Paul E. Lockwood, Governor Dewey’s secretary, said the Seattle speech would “discuss the problems that confront the working men and women of America.”
Bureaucracy hit
Mr. Lockwood said:
Governor Dewey will analyze the position in which American labor finds itself today under the system of overlapping agencies and confliction of regulations which have been built up by Washington bureaucracy.
Before the speech, Governor Dewey scheduled day-long conferences with business, agriculture, labor and political leaders similar to those he has held at nine other stops across the country during the last 11 days.
Governor Dewey told a crowd greeting him at the Union Station at Seattle today that equality among all sections of the nation is important to American prosperity. He said that economic development of the West has barely begun and promised that:
If we can achieve equality among the East, the Middle West, and the Far West in reconversion, we can go ahead to fuller employment in a free economy.
Governor Dewey will swing south after the Seattle address tonight, speaking ay Portland tomorrow night, San Francisco on Thursday night and Los Angeles on Friday night.
‘Ickes to go’
The candidate said yesterday that he was “entirely convinced” by his trip, through Michigan, Iowa, Nebraska, Wyoming, Idaho and Washington that the Roosevelt administration had “deserted” the western section of the country.
He promised that, if elected, he would be sure to appoint a Westerner to his Cabinet – probably as Secretary of the Interior. The pledge that a Cabinet post will go to a Westerner is the second commitment made thus far. He previously promised that the Labor Secretary would come from the ranks of organized labor.
Address scheduled Sunday afternoon
By Kermit McFarland
Harold L. Ickes, the New Deal’s favorite exponent of the well-turned phrase, will open the Democratic campaign in these parts with a speech Sunday in Schenley Park, the American Slav Congress announced today.
Mr. Ickes, the highest-ranking spokesman for the Democrats – aside from National Chairman Robert E. Hannegan – who has yet taken on Governor Thomas E. Dewey in debate, will speak to the closing session of the Congress, meeting here in convention Saturday and Sunday.
Flagstaff Hill to be scene
The meeting has been moved to Flagstaff Hill in the park to accommodate the expected large attendance. Other sessions of the convention, chief purpose of which is to endorse a fourth term, will be held in Carnegie Music Hall, Oakland.
Mr. Ickes, who is also Secretary of the Interior and Solid Fuels administrator, petroleum administrator for war, mine operator and other things, will speak at 4:00 p.m. ET. The address, according to Slav Congress officials, will be broadcast over a nationwide network.
The Slav Congress’ convention is one of two major Democratic rallies being held here soon under auspices other than those of the regular Democratic organization.
Wallace to speak, too
Vice President Henry A. Wallace will speak in Carnegie Music Hall on Sept. 30 at a rally to be sponsored by a committee of independent Roosevelt backers. The names of committee members have not been announced, although the present chairman is J. S. Crutchfield, president of the United Fruit Auction Company.
John Sobczak, arrangements chairman for the convention, said the American Slav Congress is a “nonpartisan organization” but added that “Slavic Americans in vast majority are convinced that President Roosevelt is the only choice for President.”
Two prominent leaders of the organization, County Court Judge Blair F. Gunther (former chairman of the board) and Gregory Zatkovich (former member of the Board of Directors), recently resigned in protest against political activities of the group. Both are Republicans. Mr. Zatkovich is a candidate for the U.S. Congress.
PAC active
Leaders of the CIO Political Action Committee have been active in organizing the convention here.
The regular Democratic organization will open its campaign here next Monday with a mass meeting in North Side Carnegie Hall. No “big name” speakers have been listed.
Congressman Francis J. Myers, nominee for the U.S. Senate, will head he program and other statewide candidates will appear.
GOP rally tomorrow
Republicans hold their first public rally tomorrow night when Ohio Governor John W. Bricker, candidate for Vice President, comes here to deliver a major speech.
Mr. Bricker will arrive late in the day and speak at 9:30 p.m. The meeting will open at 8:30 with Judge Gunther, U.S. Senator James J. Davis (candidate for reelection), and the Rev. Cornell E. Talley of the Central Baptist Church, 5th Ward, as other speakers. Governor Edward Martin will introduce Mr. Bricker.
Drive to filter down through UMW union to wives and families of his mine workers
By Fred W. Perkins, Press Washington correspondent
Cincinnati, Ohio –
The concluding days of the United Mine Workers Convention are expected to develop more of the reasons why John L. Lewis is so dead set against the reelection of President Roosevelt.
These arguments will be filtered down through the mine workers organization to the half a million members and their families in states that may decide the presidential election, including Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Kentucky, and to a lesser extent, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois.
Mr. Lewis epitomized some of his reasons in a speech before the Ohio United Construction Workers, a division of the UMW’s District 50, in which he declared that policies of the Roosevelt administration are directed toward making labor in general “a political company union.”
Sarcastic comment
He added the sarcastic comment:
What a record for one who likes to call himself the savior of mankind and the defender of the poor. He would strike down the unions that are not subservient to his wishes.
Mr. Roosevelt, Mr. Lewis charged, “joined in intrigue with his man Friday, Hillman, the cringing officers of the American Federation of Labor and the present officials of the CIO” to hinder the organization of the United Construction Workers. He shot an oratorical blast at what he called “cowardly leadership” that would permit labor to become “indentured servants.”
He asserted that under such leadership, “the officers of unions would become a police patrol to hold labor in subjugation to the will of its economic and political masters.”
‘Sympathy’ for management
In a press conference, Mr. Lewis showed a sympathy with the problems of management in the coal industry – in direct opposition to the Communist school of thought.
He argued against proposed further government development of hydroelectric power as “a vicious and destructive victory” that would “create widespread unemployment and harass invested capital in the coal industry.”
Having disposed of the controversial political and autonomy issues in a manner satisfactory to the leadership, the convention will take up a subject about which there will be no argument – the United Mine Workers want a big pay raise and they want it badly.
The details probably will not be decided definitely until a few weeks before the mine workers meet the bituminous coal operators in the regular wage conferences next March. A demand for a pay raise is sure on the basis of the volume of more-pay resolutions from local unions that are now before the convention’s “Scale Committee,” and also from the fact that Mr. Lewis has not yet won the $2-a-day raise which he spent most of 1943 trying to get.
Little Steel formula
It has been emphasized here that the apparent victory won by the miners’ union in 1943 did not raise the basic pay scale. The miners were making considerably more money, but much of it comes from premium pay for overtime, which is likely to disappear after the war. The rest of it comes from portal-to-portal pay arrangements.
Forecasts, now backed by War Labor Board panel reports in the CIO steelworkers wage case and the general case of the American Federation of Labir, are that President Roosevelt will soon authorize an upping of the Little Steel pay formula.
The WLB timetable indicates this action may be expected no later than two or three weeks before the November election.
The mine workers, like all other unions whose basic pay scales have been held to this formula, undoubtedly will line up for their share.
Best information is that the March demands will include a boost in basic pay of at least a dollar a day, and more probably the still-unsatisfied two-dollar prescription. Also, the miners are expected to demand full pay for the time spent in traveling between mine entrances and actual working places underground (portal to portal). According to the hard-to-understand settlement finally worked our by the War Labor Board, the miners get pay for only about two-thirds of this travel time.
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (UP) –
Governor Edward Martin said yesterday that the freedoms guaranteed under the Constitution were not self-perpetuating, and required the constant vigil of liberty-loving Americans because they were under the continuous attack by “both foreign foes and by enemies within our gates.”
In an address commemorating the 157th anniversary of the signing of the Constitution, Governor Martin said the framers of the Constitution set up a system of checks and balances designed to insure us against the encroachments of tyranny at home. The two-party system in our national political life was a further safeguard, Governor Martin said.
The governor said that under the Constitution, our country grew to greatness, and that our national government depends upon the indestructibility of the states for its existence. Failure of state and local governments to function properly would destroy the whole structure of national constitutional government, he said.
Governor Martin said that the first three words of the historic document – “We, the people” – proved the birth of a new concept of government, the people have chosen an orderly form of government – “the kind we want to keep and hand down to the generations that come after us,” he said. Any weakening of the Constitution would weaken the structure and spirit of America, Governor Martin said.
The ceremonies at Independence Hall were marked by an hour-long parade and a review of 800 of the state guardsmen.
